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How to perform a Traceroute on Windows, Linux and Mac

Scott avatar
Written by Scott
Updated this week

When attempting to diagnose an issue with connecting to one of your BigScoots services, often times its a result of the ‘space’ between your local computer and our servers and not an issue with the server itself. To be sure, a necessary step is to run a traceroute. A traceroute will track the steps (hops) your connection takes when leaving your local computer and arriving at our servers. If there is a bump in the road along the way, a traceroute will diagnose this issue and by providing these results to BigScoots allow us to be sure of the issue at hand and work towards a resolution much more efficiently.

How to run a traceroute on Windows:

  1. In the search bar, type 'Command Prompt' and then press.

  2. From the Command Prompt window, execute the following command to perform a tracert:

     tracert www.yourdomaingoeshere.com (i.e. tracert www.bigscoots.com) 

Your traceroute is now complete! Once you have the results, please take a screen shot (ALT + print screen) and paste it into an image editor (i.e. Microsoft Paint). Finish by saving your screen shot and attaching it to a support ticket for BigScoots to review.

How to run a traceroute on Linux:

  1. Begin by opening the Terminal from the Installed Applications section.

  2. From the Terminal window, run the following command to perform a traceroute:

traceroute www.yourdwomaingoeshere.com (i.e traceroute www.bigscoots.com)

How to run a traceroute on Mac:

  1. Begin by opening Terminal. You can do this using Spotlight Search by typing 'Terminal' and clicking the top result.

  2. From the Terminal window, run the following command to perform a traceroute:

    traceroute www.yourdomaingoeshere.com (i.e traceroute www.bigscoots.com)



    Congratulations! You've successfully performed a traceroute on Windows, Linux, and Mac.

    If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact our team via live chat.

    For technical inquiries, please feel free to reach our support team by emailing support@bigscoots.com from your registered email or by submitting a support ticket.

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